Centering Prayer (Keating)

Domain XIII · Contemplative & religious disciplines · William Meninger, Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating · 1970 · Spencer, Massachusetts

What it is

Centering Prayer is a prayer discipline, not a phased therapy. No source gives a therapy session count. Below are the tradition's own structure and a clinical frame for working alongside it. The clinical frame is.

Format

• Centering Prayer is a prayer discipline, not a phased therapy. No source gives a therapy session count. Below are the tradition's own structure and a clinical frame for working alongside it. The clinical frame is.
• Daily prayer periods. Keating's brochure recommends two daily periods of at least 20 minutes: one first thing in the morning and one in the afternoon or early evening. It says periods may lengthen to 30 minutes or more with practice. These are the tradition's own recommendations for its…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Over-identification with the client. Subtle evangelising or subtle dismissal.
• Freezing or going blank. Compliance without real consent. Images of God tied to abusers.
• Imposing a secular frame on a believer. Imposing religious practice on a secular client.
• Recent decompensation. Severe insomnia. Active trauma symptoms. The client minimising risk because they fear being stopped.
• Guilt or scrupulosity about reducing practice. Symptoms that persist after reduction, which call for fuller assessment (M, N).

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.